Two thousand dolours
John Mortimer
WRITERS IN HOLLYWOOD, 1915-1951 by Ian Hamilton
Heinemann, £14.95, pp. 326
The Taming of the Shrew,' ran the titles on one of the earliest talkies to come out of Hollywood, 'by William Shakespeare, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor'. Shakespeare we know about, but the unfortunate Sam Taylor has passed on into the limbo of forgotten screen- writers. It is very hard to think of an unforgotten screenwriter and the same oblivion awaits those whose other literary work survives. Who can remember what films were written by Aldous Huxley, Scott Fitzgerald, Christopher Isherwood or P. G. Wodehouse? The lives of writers in the old days of Hollywood appeared to be beset with loneliness, frustration and the humi- liation of being considerably overpaid for work which was so little respected that a word from the studio accountant, a faint hint dropped by the producer's girlfriend could lead to it being changed overnight. All Mr Ian Hamilton's admirable research and expertise has left him with a pretty sad story to tell.
The cinema began in a silent world where writers were hardly needed. Direc- tors such as D. W. Griffiths could write their own highly embarrassing titles, in Birth of a Nation, such as 'For her who had learned the stern lesson of honour we should not grieve that she found sweeter the opal gates of death'. When the talkies began, and dialogue was required, the writers became the lowliest of studio em- ployees. 'A writer is expected to arrive at nine o'clock in the morning and leave at five. His outside calls are monitored. He is not permitted on the set without permis- sion,' so ran the regulations at Warner Brothers. Writers were never allowed to watch the rushes or attend a preview and if they wanted to see their own pictures they had to buy a ticket.
The truth of the matter is that most film producers didn't, and many still don't, understand the process of writing. This misunderstanding explains both the temp- tations and the terrors of writing for the movies. The temptation lies in the fact that, by and large, producers don't read books and have to pay for them to be translated into scripts so that they can decide that they never wanted to make the film anyway. This means a great deal of highly paid work for writers who can live in luxury writing films that are never going to appear on the screen. This is a soul- destroying way of earning a living and compares unfavourably with the job satis- faction of lavatory attendants.
It was when at work on scripts which might be made into films that producers were most dangerous. They invariably called for treatments, or 'story outlines', which are plans which are meant to reg- ulate the characters' behaviour during the story, although all writers know that no worthwhile fictional character will ever stick obediently to a 'story outline'. Pro- ducers also wanted to discuss the plots, or `talk story', in smoke-filled rooms, whereas writers know that any self-respecting story stuck in a smoke-filled room throws open the window and makes a dash for freedom. More fatally they called for endless re- writes; although writers know that if a script is not much good the first time, incessant changes will not make it any better, particularly changes insisted upon by executives who could barely write a letter. Sometimes one writer was kept at the Sisyphean task of re-writing, some- times scripts were constructed like the pyramids and troops of writer-slaves died on the job, to be replaced by other labourers. Ben Hecht, a screenwriter of genuine talent and originality, put the situation vividly: My chief memory of movieland is one of asking the producer's office why I must change the script, eviscerate it, cripple and hamstring it? Half of the movie writers argue in this fashion. The other half write in silence, and the psychoanalyst's couch or the whisky bottle claim them both.
Mr Hamilton's book, which pursues the unhappy authors to the bottle or the shrink, finding what comfort they could in money which far exceeded what they got for writing well, and the company of an occasional starlet or production secretary. The cool-headed author does not ask us to waste too much sympathy on them. After all, they knew what they were getting into, they were content to be paid by people they despised and sometimes, as in the worst of Scott Fitzgerald's scripts, their work was not much better than the rubbish dreamed up by their producers. The best of them, such as P. G. Wodehouse, blinked with surprise, said, 'They pay me $2,000 a week and I cannot see what they engaged me for. Isn't it amazing?' and went home. Apart from him, the writers in this book do not appear in a particularly sympathetic light. Fictional tarts may have hearts of gold, but there are not many moments of nobility as the characters here remembered take the money and roll obediently over on to their backs in the script conference.
More seriously we are left wondering if the movies might not have been a great deal better if the writers hadn't been treated with such scant respect. The theatre is undoubtedly a writer's medium, and even television drama, when the con- ditions of work are as good as they have been, and may soon cease to be, in this country, has been a world in which the writer is treated with great consideration. Films are traditionally regarded as the work of the director, and audiences who cannot remember the name of a single scriptwriter can discuss dozens of favourite directors. No doubt the popular belief is that writers only do the dialogue anyway and all the rest of the film springs from the director's head, although no one ever suggests that Shakespeare didn't write the knocking in Macbeth or the storm in Lear. The fact that every moment of a film has to be written by someone alone in a room, even if no longer confined in an office from nine to five, is generally forgotten. The highest moments of comedy, the bloodiest battles and the most breathtaking chases all begin as words on a page.
So was it inconceivable that a great dramatist should arrive by way of Holly- wood? On the evidence of this book it seems unlikely. Having been kept below the stairs for so long, the screenwriters were suddenly accused of having far too much influence and filling the cinemas with communist propaganda. At least the witch hunters of the Unamerican Activities Com- mittee took writing for films seriously. The only other person to do so seems to have been Orson Welles, who said that writers should have 'the first and last word in film making, the only better alternative being the writer director'. But how many writers would be prepared to take on the slow, repetitive task of directing? Aldous Huxley was amazed at the patience of the producer of his script of Pride and Prejudice who sat for weeks and weeks cutting and recutting the picture and watching it over and over again. 'He is mad,' the author concluded. `They are all quite mad. You can't blame them when you see it done.' Reading this book, you can't help thinking how much more golden the great years of Hollywood might have been if they had all learned to understand each other better.
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